As he reached the ground he could distinctly hear the voice of the slatternly woman crying out:—
“Hush!” to the new arrivals.
The voices which had been loud at first were instantly lowered, and he could hear the riders, whoever they were, addressing quieting remarks to their horses.
“Well, I’m going to see what all this means, if it’s the last thing I do,” said Jack to himself, and suiting the action to the word he glided rapidly along in the shadow of the wall till he reached the corner of the house. There was a low outbuilding there, which might at one time have been used as a pigstye. This was just what Jack wanted. He placed both hands on the top bar of the little enclosure outside the pen-like erection, and the next instant had vaulted lightly over and was inside the little shack. The boards of which it was composed were interspersed by wide cracks, and applying his eye to one of these the Border Boy commanded a fine view of the moonlit yard at the end of the house.
As he had expected, it was full of riders, one of whom was mounted on an animal which somehow seemed familiar to the boy. He with difficulty suppressed a cry of astonishment, as the next instant the rider emerged into the moonlight, and Jack saw that he was none other than Black Ramon. The others, he now recognized as men he had seen in the camp on that adventurous morning following the delivery of the warning letter.
But Jack had not much time to meditate on all this, for he suddenly became aware that Ramon was riding behind the cantle of his saddle, and that lying across the saddle itself was a human figure. A second later the boy made out that it was the senseless form of a woman that the outlaw chief was carrying before him.
Hardly had he made this discovery before the woman and the man of the lone ranch came forward and lifted the inanimate form from the back of the black horse of the Border scourge. As they did so a mantilla of elaborate workmanship which covered her face, fell from it, disclosing her marble-like features, as pale as death. Jack then saw that she was young and very beautiful. As the girl was lifted by the lone rancheros, her consciousness returned, and opening her eyes she began to pour out a flood of Spanish. Jack, like most boys bred along the border, had a working knowledge of the language, and it didn’t take him long to gather that she was promising rich rewards, estates, anything to her captors if they would release her and restore her to her parents.
But Ramon’s rejoinder was a hoarse laugh. He informed the girl that he meant to exact a heavy ransom from her father for her freedom, and that if it were not forthcoming he would make her his own wife.
An astonishing change came over the girl at these words. From a pleading, terror-stricken maiden, she became a fine figure of scorn. Drawing herself up proudly, she exclaimed with blazing eyes:—
“I would die before such a thing happened. My father will find you out and punish you like the wicked men you are.”